It is well known in vehicles such as ships and aircraft to employ a plurality of sensors connected together and to a remote central control unit by means of wired connections for supplying sensor information for a monitoring, control or other operational function of the vehicle. Such sensor systems are complicated and expensive to install, in view of the need for complex wiring systems for supplying power to the sensors and for transmitting sensor information to the control unit from the sensors. Moreover, such systems are costly to maintain, in view of the need to monitor the integrity of the individual wired connections and/or to build in sufficient redundancy to allow for the failure of such connections without impairing the overall functioning of the system. Such systems furthermore require a substantial central power source, which may be costly to provide and may result in undesirable bulk in an environment where weight and space savings are at a premium.